Cambridge: 1

If I am not afraid of the choices that I make in life, I am not being daring enough. I would like to be surprised every day. I need to integrate more of my passion for exploring, sharing, and taking risks that I rely upon so heavily while traveling into my regular routine. I would like to be The Most Alive, and I can't help but feel that I am doing an insufficient job of that.

[Cambridge has a way of making one feel like this: inspired, but somehow constantly and irrevocably inadequate.]

There are some nights in which the heaviness of Feeling and Breathing and Past are simply too much, and you have to hold a sort of fragile vigil to remain afloat.

(It is well after 4 am, here.)

 

 Around campus, as these images illustrate, there are many beautiful things. What you can't see are the people--how they are willing to discuss literature with me at the pub, how they pronounce their Ts, how they impeccably match their button-ups to their suit jackets, and how passionate they are about Their Things. It is invigorating. Going into London yesterday was spectacular--because I have been before, I could really direct my energy towards appreciating the gems of traveling: people-watching, local art galleries and food, more nuanced cultural details.

The coursework is fascinating. Tomorrow, I am attending lectures on propaganda throughout the afternoon and reading a number of books at the library (for the paper that I am writing on comparative intelligence tradecraft between Soviet and US agencies during the Cold War.) We cannot sit on the grass here, so I expect to gaze at it longingly (while sipping Earl Grey tea) and to write. If I feel really adventurous, I might jump around on the lawn for a minute or two in my hiking boots. Just to show it who is boss.

It is a pretty little world to try and paint.